Camera Stolen

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Pierre C Belarge

Pierre C Belarge

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Location
Westchester County, New York
Recently my really good camera was stolen.
As most of you know, I take up to 300-400 pics a day. I am not the best photographer, so I may save half of the pictures I take. I am getting better. With my really good Dslr, I was finally getting the hang of how to use it for different settings...

Now I have had to make a decision as to what new camera to buy. I still had 2 "point & shoot" type digitals, so I did not miss a beat. :wink:

There are these "Bridge" type cameras out there. They are a cross between Dslr and point & shoot. I did some research and decided not to drop $1000 - $1300 on a new Dslr and I purchased one of the Bridge types.
Up until today I was sorely disappointed in the new camera.
Behold, it was not the camera, it was me. This new camera has some limited settings to work with and I made a slight change today and the pictures were much better.

Even though I have an obscene number of pictures, there are still some types of pictures I am looking for. So everyday in my quest, I am stopping & shooting, looking for those elusive electrical pictures. :grin:
 
Here is an example of my poor quality type pictures. My skills and lack of good equipment make it hard to take this type of picture and get good quality. Sometimes it is all in the lighting - lack of it.

UnitedWater-californiaRd1270770.jpg
 
iwire said:
:grin: :grin: :grin:







Like I should hold off on paying my internet provider. :grin:
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That is a good analogy.
There are at least two things I do not forget to leave the house with every day...my car keys and my camera. :D

Peter, maybe I can borrow a few bucks to help me get another camera. :wink:
 
I am not the best photographer, so I may save half of the pictures I take.
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You will only be judged by the one's people see. I shoot semi-pro and have since the days of film. I always overshoot the gigs. With digital it is no big deal but back in the film days my boss would crab about me taking too many pictures. When the great ones surfaced it was then I reminded him that if I didn't overshoot the job I would have missed that 'great one'.

To be a good photographer you have to A) have good control of your equipment, especially lighting B) have an eye for what the picture will look like on the wall as you look through the viewfinder and C) have a camera with you when you see something worth shooting.

'C' has been my downfall as well as my forte. I have pics of a car stuck in the side of a brick wall because I had my work camera next to me just a few minutes after the crash but have missed some great ones because I didn't have a camera at the time. Most recently I was driving by a lake nearby which was iced over and had started melting. A 1/2 inch of water was on top of the ice. Standing in the water on the ice was a bald eagle. The water was such that it looked like the eagle was standing on the water in the middle of the lake.

Then there was the shot I nailed of a portable toilet blowing over in a windstorm which was a total luck shot.

If you know a ham operator and want to see a pic I took ask to see the front cover of the June 2006 issue of QST magazine. One of my pics was put there as a small addition in the lower right of the cover of that magazine. I just happened to have a camera with me and looked up and saw something I thought was cool and took the shot.

Keep shooting. You can't lose experience if you keep gaining it. You will only get better as time goes by. (I started in 1974....)

--mhz
 
Pierre,

Any time you shoot shiny metal you have your work cut out for you. It's a matter of color balance and reflections. Sometimes it's better not to use a fill flash, other times it will help you.

I thought the pic you posted was pretty good. I would like you to take some time to research the 'rule of thirds' though as it may help you out a bit. But realize that all rules in photography are meant to be broken!!
 
sorry about your camera, you're going to have to stop hanging out in (ahem) certain areas.

by the way, I think your pictures are usually superb.
 
Pierre C Belarge said:
I am not the best photographer, so I may save half of the pictures I take. I am getting better.
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If you really were a good photographer, you would only save about 5% of the pictures you take. I kid you not. You would also know one of the cardinal rules of photography: Don’t let anyone see the other 95%! I still kid you not.

As to the quality of any given image, let me suggest that “quality” is really about fulfilling the needs of the user; it’s about complying with requirements. So ask yourself what you need the image to do, then ask if this particular image satisfies that need. I suspect that most of your photographs are intended to be a record of an event, such as the condition of a facility at the time of your inspection. If you can see, in the image, the thing that caused you to write up a violation, then the photo is a success. Getting perfect focus, perfect depth of field, perfect exposure, and perfect composition would certainly improve the photographic quality of the image. But it might not make the image any better at doing its intended job of conveying the condition at the time of inspection.
 
colorblind. . .

colorblind. . .

I heard that 10% of the males and 1% of the females have this. The mothers pass it on to the sons.

Didn't know it until I looked at a test in a college psych book. It took me 10 minutes in bright sunlight before I could see the numbers embedded in those circles filled with colored dots. I think red-green blindness is the most common type.

Job opportunities not open to me: medical school, since you need to see shades of red.
 
I have a Dslr Pentax. I try to do the Photography thing. keeping about 5% of your pictures is about right. sucks about the camera. I have a back pack that has my laptop and camera in. That pack has about $2500 in it. Some guy picked it up at a training class. Talk about knocking 5 years off your life. He thought someone left it. He did turn it is to the office.
 
Pierre I own at 7 cameras, several film cameras, and a few digital. I mostly use film for serious photos (serious to me) and digital for quick previews and work.

NOW, my Nikon D-80 with a 12/24 zoom is great for close ups, though it slows you down. IMO a good point and shoot with a few options, wide angle, optical zoom over digital zoom, large display on the back. Mega-pixels is really not an issue any camera you buy with these features will have sufficient MPs. You seriously only need high MPs when you blow up your prints above 8X10, and with software you can have pixels added.

But if you want a good camera SLR style reasonably priced go for the Nikon D-40 and like a 16-85 lens. Look for a package deal....

Most GOOD local camera shops offer one day courses on using the specific camera you purchase. Additionally Comm Colleges have 4 day classes that can get you up to speed on using all the features to take good pictures.

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Product/Digital-SLR/25420/D40.html

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Camera-Lenses/Autofocus/Standard-Zoom.page?

I have seen digital photos taken with an inexpensive camera by a pro photographer and that picture was better than anything I could take with the most expensive digital. Like electric work expierence and understanding the medium go a long way.


Taken at Whites Ferry, Where Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomac on his way to Gettysburg PA.
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